Setting Default selection on selectOneMenu via Bean

Question

This seams like an easy problem, but perhaps I'm missing something. I'm trying to prepopulate a user field in a search filter with the current logged in user. The Role filter is being populated as expected, but the user field defaults to blank. I've set a log statement in the bean, and it verifies that the bean is being set. I've also done a search within the goToBasicSearch function, and it searches based on the current logged in user.

The dropdown is being populated correctly, and selecting a user and searching works correctly. I would like to know why the UI isn't populating the field with the default value. Technology stack: Seam 2.3, Jboss 7, JSF 2, Richfaces 4

Bean:

@Name( "SearchAction" )
@Scope( ScopeType.CONVERSATION )
public class SearchAction
    {
    private SearchFilter searchFilter = new SearchFilter;
    // other stuff

    @Begin(join = false )
    public String goToBasicSearch()
        {
         searchFilter.setRole( Roles.ANY );
         searchFilter.setStaff( user.getStaff() );
         return SEARCH;
        }

XHTML

<!-- normal stuff -->
<h:selectOneMenu required="false" value="#{SearchAction.searchFilter.staff}">
    <s:selectItems  id="staffField" var="_selection" label="_selection.fullName" value="#{allStaff}" noSelectionLabel=""/>
    <f:converter converterId="converter.staff"/>
</h:selectOneMenu>
<h:selectOneMenu id="roleField" required="false" value=#{SearchAction.searchFilter.role}">
    <s:convertEnum />
    <s:selectItems id="roleField" var="_selection" label="#{_selection.title} value=#{SearchAction.roleList}" noSelectionLabel="" hideNoSelectionLabel="true" itemValue="#{_selection}"
</h:selectOneMenu>

Many thanks

Answer 1

Instead of setting the staff member by searchFilter.setStaff(user.getSTaff()); I had to search through the list.

long id = user.getStaff().getId();
for( Staff staff : staffList )
    {
    if( staff.getId() == id )
        {
        searchFilter.setStaff( staff );
        break;
        }
    }